Hi................ I'm a Food Addict............
or.....at least a recovering Food Addict. I never thought it possible to be "addicted" to food, but.... thinking back on how I got here, it must be. Because, really, what is an addict? Someone habitually and compulsively repeating acts or ingesting substances involuntarily.
While eating is a voluntary action....... I spent years "trying" to watch what I ate. I made promise after promise to myself that I would eat better...... make healthier choices...... avoid sweets.... And yet, time after time again I continued making poor choices. I continued eating sweets, and fatty foods, hating myself for it, and knowing it was hurting my body.
I'm breaking those addictions now.
In the beginning, my body wanted to go through the motions I had trained it for so well. Even though I was really watching what I ate, if I came into sight or contact with food that was not on my "plan", it took a conscious effort, not to follow through with the actions my body was telling me to do.... like licking the bowls, or sampling the food I was cooking. It wasn't even so much that I craved the food. It was more a feeling of "skipping necessary steps"....
Imagine you have a job, where every day you perform a series of actions in the same order, over and over all day long. In the beginning the steps are complicated, but over time you become proficient at it, and it requires no thought on your part at all. You are like a well oiled machine. After several years, someone comes in and tells you that there is a change in procedure. The first few steps are the same, but midway through, the pattern is changed. You have to retrain yourself. In the beginning, you might continue the old pattern, without thought, and have to go back and correct yourself. But..... in time, you will become just as proficient with the new procedure, or new pattern, as you were with the old. This is kind of where I'm at.
I'm retraining myself.
It's not going to happen overnight. But I'm learning....... one meal at a time.
